Ever have your book club meet in the shady part of town to discuss Japanese literature while enjoying the culinary arts from the kitchen of a 24-hour card room/casino? I have...and if you ever want to do the same, or just need a place to go at 3:00 am for a cup of Seafood Soup Fun or Old Fashioned Spaghetti...or hell...both if it's been that kind of night (because sometimes it is that kind of night), go to Capitol Casino Card Room on N 16th in Downtown Sacramento.
I had selected Haruki Murakami's After Dark for my second turn in the book club. The book takes place in the underbelly of Tokyo in the hours after midnight when prostitutes and shady office workers roam the streets while skinny saxophone players drink milk and flirt with bookish girls in Denny's restaurants. It's a gem...really...it is. That pause and my need to reassure you tells me I should share with you the back story of my first book club choice and why I feel the need to justify my selections.
There is one in every group. I'm the one in my book club. When it's the turn of "the one", the group shrugs their collective shoulders to their cheeks and lip-curls their collective Billy Idol worthy sneer. They fear what the one will choose next. I have a reputation. And I've been punished for it. I've chosen books that are...well...not liked...and sometimes not even finished. Yes, I'm the bane of the book club.
My first choice was Snow by Orhan Pamuk. While I appreciated his painterly prose and literary devices...my friends disliked the slow drift of what they said was..."torture by Orhan." In our group, the person who selects the book also makes arrangements for a discussion and venue, usually dinner at a restaurant, and runs the evening with questions and food for thought. For Snow I chose Cafe Morocco on Alhambra Blvd in Midtown Sacramento. I wanted to bring life to our food-for-thought discussions and match the restaurant venue with the theme and culture of the book. And though my book was not well received, a tradition was born in the book club and meetings have since been crafted with care to create an overall experience. For What is the What by Dave Eggers we went to an Ethiopian restaurant, Addis Ababa and ate enjera with our firfir. Ahhh....books and the taste and sound of new words.
Insert my sound segue here. Not long before inflicting Snow on the group I had been introduced to the word "berm". I had never heard it before and soon learned it was a mound of earth (or even snow) that often serves as a fortification of some sort. But to me, the word berm, sounds like a place where you are sent for punishment. I jokingly started threatening one of my book club friends, who calls herself Arcane, that I would send her to the berm when she told me she didn't really care for Star Wars . OK...whatever book club calamity I create...to me not caring for Star Wars is worthy of being "sent to the berm." And so, "to the berm with you..." has often been invoked ever since as punishment.
When we met to discuss Snow I was greeted with what can be best described as castigation via a book club diorama. Arcane and her accomplice, who I call Closet Blue, had sent me to the berm, a snow berm, for my book choice. As we discussed how much they hated the book over couscous and baba ganooj while the belly dancer shook her belly in our faces, my gnomish picture stared back at me from the snow berm they made from cotton balls and book club rancor.
Of course I was nervous about my sophomore selection for book club—my friends are a little unforgiving of my literary tastes and I was facing book club banishment. So...if they didn't like the book again, I had better deliver on the themed venue to at least evoke what we read through taste and experience. For After Dark, I needed a restaurant and/or venue that matched the theme or locale of the book. I needed to find a 24-hour underbelly kind of place that would attract seedy underbelly kind of characters. By now you've noticed I like the word underbelly. And while I didn't want us to eat underbelly, I wanted us to experience it. And I bring you back to where I started, Capitol Casino Card Room on N 16th in Downtown Sacramento.
When would any of us ever go to a card room in the seedy part of town and be able to select from a range of menu items? All while discussing a surreal Japanese book? The card room menu has everything from Seafood Soup Fun to Salisbury Steak. There is even the 8 Treasures Tofu Bowl—what kind of treasure might you find in it? Strangely to us, the treasure includes assorted meat and seafood. We stayed away from the Treasured Tofu and couldn't really anticipate with ease how fun Seafood Soup Fun really could be. If you have to market seafood as fun...it's best to stay away from it.
And there we were, Arcane, Closet Blue and the rest of the book club, being suspiciously watched by the kitchen cooks, the server, and the transient clientele as we discussed After Dark. The entire group didn't give me a shrug or sneer, but they did give a quizzical but demanding, "What???" about the book. I wasn't successful again. Curses! They even threatened to frame my berm with a TV box (you have to read the book to get the reference...my way to get people to read what I think is a good book).
If you have been banishéd (yes that's a Shakespearean syllable), know you are not alone. Continue to choose books that you are interested in even if the group will chastise you and maybe even berm you. Being bermed makes you stronger—it gives you character. Just make sure you can offer a different and fun place to discuss your book. Be it underbelly and Seafood Soup Fun or belly dancing and baba ganooj—at least everyone can enjoy the taste of the book if not the story. Just be careful how you incorporate any kind of belly.
